


Sand Castles

by witchsoup



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, F/F, F/M, Ministry of Magic, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 21:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9290522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchsoup/pseuds/witchsoup
Summary: From the day they broke ground at Malfoy Manor Draco can name every paternal ancestor he has. An unbroken line from the man whose blood forged the wards of their estate, to his heir growing in Astoria’s womb.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm convinced Astoria is underrated. I just want Draco to be happy. Also I'm so here for ride or die Pansy and Draco, while the only thing better than background Pansmione is, you know, foreground Pansmione.

One must be sure-footed, in Slytherin House. So much to carry, so much to balance: on every one of their shoulders stands centuries of tradition. Expectation is heavy. Draco Malfoy, first of his name, prince of politicians and scion of wealth, is the last of the Black and Malfoy lines, the fruit of two dynasties.

When compared to his mother’s line, his Malfoy blood smacks of new money. Cygnus Black had at first ignored the request made by _that French boy, the one with the girl’s hair,_ for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Marrying a pair of sisters to a pair of brothers would have secured a strong alliance with the Lestranges: a respectable family who served real food at dinner parties and didn’t shy away from beating their children. In reality, the Malfoys had put down roots in the seventeenth century, sent feelers to London and began to trade across Europe. Lucius had him taught French not for love of his forefathers’ country, but because half the Malfoy trade journals are written in it. A translation charm cannot compare to fluency.

From the day they broke ground at Malfoy Manor Draco can name every paternal ancestor he has. An unbroken line from the man whose blood forged the wards of their estate, to his heir growing in Astoria’s womb.

The time between the Battle of Hogwarts and now can be divided as follows: one year spent in the throes of Ministry Mandated Movement between Hogwarts and house visits; three years interning for the Department of International Magical Co-operation and the insufferable Percy Weasley; one year courting Astoria Greengrass, the girl he’s known since she was in nappies; one wedding; one year of marriage, five months of pregnancy _inclusive._

Betrothal contracts are not spoken of, once they’re sealed. Astoria was thrown a party in a white gown before she could walk, something like a Muggle baptism, drops of blood and salt water in the woods to the North of the grounds, something the Ministry has never explicitly forbidden for fear of whom it would rankle with. It was the last time their engagement, if such a thing could exist between infants, was mentioned. On her eighteenth birthday he presented her a ring. The party was hosted by Narcissa, bound to Malfoy Manor under a sentence of ten years house arrest.

At the time, she had been salvation, something bright and unsullied to display in a house tainted by the Dark Lord, untouched and pristine. A political match between a moderate family and former Death Eaters, wealthy and respected by all those fallen out of favour in the Prophet but not the circles that matter.

In their shared years at Hogwarts he kept a close eye on her, watched as she charmed her way across the breadth of their House, a snake with a smile, small and delicate and unassuming. An adder in the grass, nipping at ankles. She holds a propensity for Transfiguration, Arithmancy and Herbology, a secret passion for the Holyhead Harpies and a love of Fizzing Whizbees.

Draco has been groomed since birth for politicking. His marriage was supposed to be _spin._

He knows how modern governments are _supposed_ to work. If the Romans could understand that power is a balancing act, so should they. The Ministry of Magic, for all it pretends to be, is not a democratic body. Not even his criminal record can keep him from a seat in the Wizengamot that has had his name on it since the second Lucius was sentenced to Azkaban. Minister Shacklebolt assumed power under martial law, but for centuries before, the voice of the Wizengamot was louder than the voice of the people. It is arcane, corrupt, a mess. Kingsley Shacklebolt is no politician: he is an Auror, a leader of soldiers, and he is as suited to leading their country as a Flobberworm. 

With Lucius rolling in his rather damp Azkaban grave, Draco accepted an internship the day he graduated Hogwarts, second in his class behind the conspicuously absent Undersecretary Miss Hermione Granger. Although in the previous year the Order of the Phoenix had shown a poor hand - Dumbledore’s best and brightest had not thought past the death of the Dark Lord, it seemed - the moment Granger took to the Wizengamot she had begun to clean house, from the coveted broom cupboard she calls an office.

Draco was summoned to the Ministry less than an hour after his final class of the year and after skimming his N.E.W.T. results Undersecretary Granger had scratched a note to Percy Weasley. Only after she had sent the paper plane on its way had she invited - no, instructed - him to sit, offered him a water and informed him that he’d be expected to gain some _actual experience_ before he’d be considered eligible to take his seat. Knowing better than to antagonise her, he had sneered anyway and asked what sort of political experience she could boast that has her situated so close to the Minister. All she had done was stand, straighten her skirt and show him out of the office to where Percy Weasley was propped on the desk of Shacklebolt’s secretary. 

“Mr. Malfoy? I’ll have my assistant owl you a copy of my CV.” At the look of confusion that crossed his face, she continued. “I’ll be sure to highlight my sojourn as head of Student Council at Primary School - it was, of course an elected position. Goodbye, Draco.” 

Within his first month three reforms had been passed unanimously through the Wizengamot, each one penned _in its entirety_ by Hermione Granger during her final year at Hogwarts. Even war heroines can’t be seen to govern from Gryffindor Tower. 

Four years almost to that day, he’s only a floor below her. Draco Malfoy has climbed a long way from the dungeons.

The Malfoy wedding was attended by every Ministry employee who could claim to manage even a single subordinate, and while invitations had been extended to every Hogwarts alumna in Draco and Astoria’s years, only a handful of the _Harry Potter class_ were witness to his nuptials. All of whom had been threatened into obeyance by the newly minted Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, a close friend of the bride.

The fact that his wife, his pretty, clever, witty wife, is a close personal friend of Hermione Granger is something of a nightmare. Astoria would much rather have had _Hermione, darling_ \- before Astoria he had never met a woman, bar his mother, who could carry off the word darling - as her head bridesmaid, but her own mother wouldn’t hear of it. 

As a younger sibling, Astoria harbours a rather cruel sense of humour. Though Daphne looks impeccable for the photos, when she moves her dress does incredibly unflattering things for her figure - it also contains as much of the dreaded boning as they could muster.

Daphne Greengrass, now his sister-in-law, strove throughout her school years to emulate Pansy Parkinson in all things, gleaning small pockets of power from dismissing her little sister in front of most of Slytherin house. Pansy began to pay attention to the rising star that was Astoria as the years passed. Daphne never did. Now, years after Pansy ceased to hold any real power over her, she’s no better. Daphne is petulant and envious in a way that Pansy never was - prickly, where Pansy was simply sharp. 

Pansy was twelve when she told Draco he’d have to marry her instead, that she’d help him become the youngest Minister for Magic there’s ever been. When he told her a three year old had been sworn in by accident in 1858 she threw his History of Magic textbook at his head.

Although his mother was mortified - _honestly, Draco, it would be nothing to owl Blaise and have them rush his robes, you know the Minister would grant you an international Portkey for your wedding_ \- Pansy stood in as his best man. She wore a dress, cut so low in the back Draco was hard pressed not to offer her his jacket to cover the slope of her arse. She made a rather dry and scathing speech and proceeded to ply the Undersecretary with elf-made wine. She made off to the suite she frequented as a child forever pestering her parents to spend summers with the Malfoys. She, somehow, avoided the reporters.

Undersecretary Granger was not photographed again that night.

Narcissa never much liked Pansy as a child, though she had gone back to Hogwarts for a final year for Draco’s sake. Narcissa did not enjoy scandal, and had held her tongue when Draco asked her if she knew anything about a previous liaison between Pansy and Chief Warlock Granger. That night, when Draco asked Astoria what she knew of Pansy’s apparently dastardly plan to steal the innocence of the Minister’s golden girl, she had simply laughed, and told him not to speak any more of the other women in his life. 

That first night with Astoria, unhindered by the pressure placed by fertility potions and marks on a calendar, ranks as the best night of his life - and will only take second place to the night his wife and his son sleep in the Manor for the first time.

Draco has a twenty year plan, beginning with the birth of his son - Astoria has acceded to Scorpius - and ending with the entry of his firstborn into the halls of the Ministry, all before Draco reaches his fiftieth birthday. By such point, he will have achieved Supreme Mugwump status (because he’ll be damned if Granger thinks she can just _take that too_ ), and his mother will retire to the dowager wing and take up pottery or some such hobby for the elderly and wealthy.

Astoria will have sweet talked him into selling half their properties to fund whatever charitable organisation her heart desires. It is likely, however that she will first invest said funds without his knowledge, possibly in Muggle stock, and double their investment without breaking a sweat. As she’s not a Ministry employee, her N.E.W.T. results are sealed - he knows for a fact she scored higher than Hermione in Arithmancy, which he will take to his grave.

Though he should have never doubted Narcissa, Draco was right to have doubted himself, in the beginning. Blinkered, he saw Astoria as an airheaded heiress, eager to claw her way into his vaults and his mother’s elitist social circles. He was cold, perfunctory. Made little to no conversation over dinners, accepted bites from her fork with only the most blank of expressions. Dreaded the night he’d have to take her to bed and watch her transform from coquette to a beautiful, frightened and unmoved doll.

The sole advantage of their match was that it made _logical sense,_ or so he thought.

His mother had warned him about Pureblood marriage - that love would come. He had not expected Astoria to bring him to his knees in under six months, to have him begging her to allow him to take her to bed. He did not expect to feel anything other than the crushing weight of duty on their wedding day.

There’s something in him, the same kind of something that makes him sleep closest to the door of their bedroom, that likes the thought of a complete set. Successful Young Man, includes: pregnant wife (1), loving mother (1), childhood friends (2), unlikely work friend (1), lucrative career path (1).

Dark mark (1).


End file.
